Views On Abortion

Of course, “that much” is relative here. Because young people are still strongly in support of abortion rights and availability. Three-quarters of millennials call themselves “pro-choice.” 68% agree that “at least some health care professionals in [the] community should provide legal abortions” and 60% support the legality of abortion. 59% said they think that “abortion can be the most responsible decision a woman can make in certain circumstances.” And, although the report describes millennials as “conflicted” on the morality of abortion, yesterday Sarah Posner broke down the data and noted that, in fact, young people are actually less conflicted than other groups.

In other words, then, millenials are more in the “morally acceptable” camp than any other age group, and they are more likely than the population as a whole to say that abortion is “morally acceptable.” So why highlight that they are conflicted on the morality of abortion? Instead, the data suggest that millenials are moving more in the direction of accepting the legality, availability, and morality of abortion, and therefore are less conflicted than their elders.

Posner notes that one of the strangest findings was that young people, unlike everyone else, are more likely to support the availability of abortion in the community than they are to support the legality of abortion. Which, of course, makes no sense. One of the researchers suggests that perhaps millennials, who were born after abortion was legalized and whose “eyes glazed over” when asked about policy questions, may be less likely to “perceive risk to legality than availability.” And considering that so many communities lack meaningful access to abortion even though Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, I think that’s actually a pretty accurate assessment of the world we live in.